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Every movement flowed into the next until the sequence lived inside my body instead of my mind.
Rain.
Concrete.
Cloves.
One foot lighter.
Waits outside the door.
The dummy became him.
Not his face.
His rhythm.
His mistakes.
I stepped away. My hand found the knife at my back.
The familiar weight settled into my palm.
Home.
The blade whispered free.
I moved.
One step. Inside his reach. Across his throat. Withdraw. Gone. He turned. Too slow. The blade stuck again. Under the ribs. Twist. Free. Pivot. Another step. Behind him now. Kidney. Shoulder. Femoral.
Every strike landed exactly where it was meant to. No wasted movement. No hesitation. No anger. Only certainty. Plastic split beneath the blade. Foam spilled across the mats. The dummy sagged forward.
Finished.
I stood over it, my breathing as steady as when I begun.
The knife hung loose at my side.
Rain.
Concrete.
Cloves.
“I know how you move now.”
The words disappeared into the empty room. I wiped the blade clean on a cloth. Slid it back into its sheath.
“Once I know how a man moves…”
Silence settled.
“…he’s already dead.”
I left the ruined dummy and the training room behind. But I didn’t head back inside. Instead, I headed for the gardens and the destroyed greenhouse.
The ghosts of my past were already there.
